Tank Tactics - A guide for what they do and how to deal with them

They are a bounty sink and they need 3 medkits after their 2nd to be able to survive without being a hindrance. The tank does %hp dmg tenacity lets the tank make you useless after you die unless your gonna spend 3 bounty worth of medkits after the the 1st one. I'm guessing HC made the tank this way due to too many people using tenacity and he wanted people to rethink their buffs they are using.

;n127151]They are a bounty sink and they need 3 medkits after their 2nd to be able to survive without being a hindrance. The tank does %hp dmg tenacity lets the tank make you useless after you die unless your gonna spend 3 bounty worth of medkits after the the 1st one. I'm guessing HC made the tank this way due to too many people using tenacity and he wanted people to rethink their buffs they are using.

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I actually do agree with you on the last point there. Heartbroken tank would have been made to make survivors come up with strategies to combat it's high damage power versus a Tenacity Player. There is an important part of the process of deciding buffs in which you need to make sure your using the right set that you know is going to be effective against the tank and the other infected. It's no good having buffs that don't focus on what you want on a particular buff set that you named for a specific purpose. I know this isn't related to the forum thread here, but wanted to bring this up anyway.

Tanks such as Butcher and Supreme Knight tank weren't made for nothing, they were infact made to be challenging, probably in the similar way as Heartbroken would have been made.

IMO,
The heartbroken tank makes a great "event" only tank nevertheless a great tank as it keeps you on your toes and is challenging.
However about the tenacity buff against the Heartbroken (HB) tank, i would agree with loli to an extent if one does not have other healing/regen buffs.
In addition, i would say it's more of a person's playstyle. I personally would equip tenacity only if i had adv morphine, mostly because i do high dps in intervals which causes tank to aggro at me for a duration and rather than being incapped/dead, i would still be able to stand up and heal back to 2500 hp/5000hp within a minute or two.

Hey'll, adding onto mute's guide with the tank tactics for the three new tanks.

NOTE: The 2nd tank i'll be covering here is an update to it, for further clarification on its abilities and additional tank tactics.

Mirage Tank (Tier 1)

Special Abilities:

Average Health

Average Speed

Average Hit Interval

Summons two fake tanks to fight alongside it, Fake tanks deal half as much damage and take triple damage.

If the real tank dies, fake tanks die along with it.

If fake tanks die, survivors get no rewards from killing it.

Tactics:

If there are other tanks out in play other than the Mirage Tank, try not to get distracted by the fake tanks. Let the other survivors aggro them while you focus down the real tank as a priority before fighting other tanks.

If there are a low number of players on the server while fighting the Mirage Tank, try to even the playing field by having other players aggro other tanks while you are focusing a tank down. They are weak when alone but strong when together against 1 person.

Remember to deal the minimum required damage to the real mirage tank if you plan on killing the fake tanks first before the real one. If the real tank dies however while you dealt no damage to it and only focused on the fake tanks, the fake tanks also die leaving you with no rewards.

Cloaked Assassin Tank (Tier 2)

Special Abilities:

Lowest health out of all Tier 2 tanks

Tank claw attacks instantly kill unless you have over 1000 HP

Average Hit Interval

The tank is almost invisible to survivors

When tank hits any survivor, he is revealed for 3 seconds.

Any tank claw hits on a survivor causes a rupture for a large amount of time causing great damage overtime. Rupture can be reduced by standing still and crouching down.

Tactics:

Your highly recommended to go with an offensive based buff set for most survivors when fighting the Cloaked Assassin Tank. Make sure to have the Avenger Buff equipped as one of your buffs to ensure a continuous boost in damage for a short amount of time every time a survivor dies to the tank.

If you want to prevent non-tenacity players from dying, aggro the tank yourself so you can take the sacrifice for the team and let the other survivors deal a lot of damage to the tank.

If your infected with the Rupture from the tank claw attack, DON'T MOVE. You can cure away the Rupture caused by the tank by standing still and crouching down. You can still support the other survivors attacking the tank, however if you don't want to get aggro'd again, try not to deal too much damage quickly.

If there are less survivors alive when the tank spawns and your on a non-finale chapter, try to hurry to the safe room if your not a non-tenacity survivor. You can let the tenacity survivors sacrifice themselves so that the tank cannot chase you down as quick.

Splitter Tank (Tier 2)

Special Abilities:

Lower than average health

Average Hit Interval

Average Tank Claw Damage

The tank can split 2 times before he is fully killed. however each time he splits

The tanks punches have a chance to inflict high knockback and confused bad status effect on his victim for a short amount of time.

If any Splitter tank is within a short radius of another tank, it gains a small percentage boost in defense (doesn't stack).

On Every 10th punches (no matter which tank does the punch). Inflict the survivor attacked with heart splitter. Halving maximum HP for a moderate amount of time. Decreasing in duration as tank is more split.

Tactics:

You will need at a minimum of 4 survivors who have more than 65% defense using a defensive buff set who can tank effectively against this tank. This is to ensure the most effective way of defeating the tanks would be to evenly separate and take them out as a team effort.

If you have a survivor using the defensive buff set who is confident at tanking any tank with 90% defense, get him to aggro all the tanks that spawn so you can make the most of your damage, especially if using explosive based buff sets. Don't forget though that each tank nearby each other gets a small increase in defense resulting in slightly less damage being dealt.

Be careful when fighting this tank in the Dead Center and No Mercy Finales, you wouldn't want to make the wrong movement while aggroing the tank or it could quickly lead to you or other survivors being quickly killed.

If you want to quickly kill off Splitter Tanks one at a time, wait until they have 30 or 40k HP to do so since they are more dangerous after the tank has splitted twice and they have less survivability overall. That is if you are using offensive or explosive based buff sets.

If there less survivors alive when the tank has splitted at least twice, don't try to get any splitted tanks aggroing you down, let the high defense survivors aggro them so that their sacrifice allows you to get away faster before they can catch up to you.

If you get the heart splitter effect from any one of the Splitter Tanks that inflict it make sure to avoid all tanks focusing down against you, especially with high punch damage tanks or tanks with highly damaging abilities such as Butcher, Bloody, Shaman, Knight, Supreme Shaman, Supreme Knight, and Infernal as you have less survivability for some time.

Doing an update on the Butcher tank here as well. REPOSTING IT as updated. (I'm basing its special abilities as per xero's post but with changes to its damage. The tactics are based on my post but with changes.

Butcher Tank (Tier 2)

Special Abilities:

The Butcher tank is the hard counter to the tenacity buff.

It's claw attacks deal 6% of your maximum HP as damage, slows your movement speed down by 8%. It can deal +1% maximum HP as additional damage while your within a close radius, resets if you are out of it's range.

Has a meat shield which increases by 5000 for each killed and 350 for each incapacitated survivor which blocks all kind of damage except for melee. Each Melee hit reduces the meat shield by 175.

Throws chainsaws in the air which then will drop down and if hit deal 2.5% max health damage per second for 4 seconds.

When the meat shield is up the hit delay decreases to 0.5

Tactics:

It is recommended for survivors to use a defensive buff set over a offensive buff set due to the high amount of damage butcher tank inflicts through his punches

Make sure to let someone else aggro the tank after you have taken some damage or do the moving aggro method so you can continuously reset its increasing damage.

If you want to make this fight easier with multiple survivors tanking the tank's punches, get survivors to place down health dispensers nearby so that they can be healed while tanking damage, this makes surviving much easier to do.

If you hear the sound of multiple rocks at once, you will know thats when the butcher tank is throwing chainsaws up into the air and back down again. Avoid them if you are on low health and if butcher tank is nearby since they can slow you down. It is also a good idea to find cover during the time that the chainsaws are coming down so then they cannot hit you.

Do not revive any tenacity buffed dead survivors while a butcher tank is nearby, not only will he kill them again (he can do it faster than you can heal a survivor while he has meat shield active) but also gain himself +5000 to his meat shield or give himself the benefits if he already doesn't have a meat shield.

Know when it is the right time to be healing using your first aid kit while as a tenacity survivor, if you know you are going to die from a punch or currently close to death while being dealt DPS damage then do heal (for a 1st or 2nd heal).

If you have healed yourself several times while fighting this tank and find it hard to heal again, self-sacrifice yourself without letting the tank kill you (DPS damage that kills you doesn't affect the Butcher Tank's Meat Shield) to allow free damage to be inflicted onto the tank.

If you know you cannot save yourself from another punch from the Butcher Tank, quickly get a survivor to lure the tank away using a HIGH DPS weapon at close range or using the AWP/SCOUT rifle to lure the tank over from further away. Make sure the survivor luring the tank away is able to tank the damage the tank deals to him/her.

Let me know if I have missed anything for the 3 listed tanks above. Feel free to give feedback on these tactics that i've added to Mute's guide. Thanks for reading!

Might as well update with the new supposed to be tier 3 tank. Sickening Tank, since there is no !tankinfo for it yet even though there is a section called special tanks which contains nothing inside. This is based off what I know.

Sickening Tank (Tier 3)

Special Abilities:

Highest Maximum HP out of all tanks

Lowest Claw Damage out of all tier 3 tanks

Every 80 seconds or so after the tank spawns, survivors start taking SICKNESS damage with +2 true damage added on every time. This continues until either the survivors die and or the tank reaches desperation to boost the current true damage by x3.

Every time the tank hits any survivor they also take another stack of SICKNESS damage starting at +2 true damage. This can increase every time the tank successfully hits you from 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128. If the tank hits you while your true damage being taken is 128, the duration of it is extended by 15 seconds or so.

The tank can spawn a rapidly blinking green beacon that expands slowly until reaching about 3x its starting range. Each time a survivor gets hit they take 0.1% of their maximum HP as true damage every 0.1 seconds.

The tank is able to go into desperation mode at 5000 HP. He gains increased movement speed, attack speed*, and all true damage skills now inflict triple the damage to survivors.

Tactics:

It is recommended that all of the survivors go with the offensive buff set for this tank. As the punch damage is the only thing that can be reduced and is quite low anyway.

In order to avoid all survivors wiping to SICKNESS true damage at desperation, make sure that you can drain down the tank's HP as fast as you can. Burst Damage weapons such as AWP/SCOUT and Grenade Launcher are much more effective here.

If you plan on aggroing the tank, try not to do it too often or you will end up taking too much true damage that requires healing using the first aid kit. Also make sure to have nearby survivors to help aggro it away from you if needed.

If your health is low the first time, don't heal before when you actually need to do so before your death. You'll save yourself needing to do a 2nd and or a third healing before the tank dies. Don't forget to heal if its necessarily needed to prevent your death if you know you won't be able to survive the next hit or the few seconds afterwards.

Gonna close this thread so that future updates can be placed in the wiki here. At some point I, or maybe someone else, will update the wiki with some of the information provided by the community. If you can't already modify the wiki and are interesting in adding to it, let me know.

On second thoughts, I'm gonna re-open this thread as a place for people to discuss, as there doesn't appear to be such an option in the wiki area. I'm also gonna keep the wiki closed for now as the formatting used isn't regular BBCode and not everyone may understand how it works.

Might as well update with the new supposed to be tier 3 tank. Sickening Tank, since there is no !tankinfo for it yet even though there is a section called special tanks which contains nothing inside. This is based off what I know.

Sickening Tank (Tier 3)

Special Abilities:

Highest Maximum HP out of all tanks

Lowest Claw Damage out of all tier 3 tanks

Every 80 seconds or so after the tank spawns, survivors start taking SICKNESS damage with +2 true damage added on every time. This continues until either the survivors die and or the tank reaches desperation to boost the current true damage by x3.

Every time the tank hits any survivor they also take another stack of SICKNESS damage starting at +2 true damage. This can increase every time the tank successfully hits you from 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128. If the tank hits you while your true damage being taken is 128, the duration of it is extended by 15 seconds or so.

The tank can spawn a rapidly blinking green beacon that expands slowly until reaching about 3x its starting range. Each time a survivor gets hit they take 0.1% of their maximum HP as true damage every 0.1 seconds.

The tank is able to go into desperation mode at 5000 HP. He gains increased movement speed, attack speed*, and all true damage skills now inflict triple the damage to survivors.

Tactics:

It is recommended that all of the survivors go with the offensive buff set for this tank. As the punch damage is the only thing that can be reduced and is quite low anyway.

In order to avoid all survivors wiping to SICKNESS true damage at desperation, make sure that you can drain down the tank's HP as fast as you can. Burst Damage weapons such as AWP/SCOUT and Grenade Launcher are much more effective here.

If you plan on aggroing the tank, try not to do it too often or you will end up taking too much true damage that requires healing using the first aid kit. Also make sure to have nearby survivors to help aggro it away from you if needed.

If your health is low the first time, don't heal before when you actually need to do so before your death. You'll save yourself needing to do a 2nd and or a third healing before the tank dies. Don't forget to heal if its necessarily needed to prevent your death if you know you won't be able to survive the next hit or the few seconds afterwards.

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Changed up some stuff with my last post since I only have recently discovered the !tankinfo for Sickening Tank.

Whenever tank hits any survivor, survivor is inflicted with Toxicity Bad Status Effect, causing survivor to receive 1HP/s overtime. Every time it is stacked, the damage dealt is doubled. When damage reaches maximum of 128HP/s, getting hit again increases duration of Toxicity before it loses stacks by 6 seconds. 1 stack of Toxicity is removed every 6 seconds.

Other survivors that are not part of the current survivor group will come to attack the survivors every few minutes.

The tank contaminates the entire area, causing all survivors to take 2HP/s (+2 HP/s every 80 seconds) regardless of location until the tank dies or the survivors wipe.

The tank is able to release a Toxic Cloud that grows in size overtime. They deal 40HP/s.

If survivor has been affected by Toxic Clouds for more than 15 seconds in any timeframe, they get inflicted with Lethal Disease Bad Status Effect. This causes the survivor to lose 5% of their total missing HP per second. The disease lasts until the tank dies

When the tank reaches 8k HP or so (correct me if im wrong), it goes into Toxic Desperation. It doesn't take any damage while under desperation and multiplies the true damage dealt by all applicable abilities by x3. The tank will explode after 45 seconds.

Tactics:

It is recommended that all survivors go with offensive buff sets due to the tank having no defense against most sources.

If you decide to tank the Toxicity Stacks damage, make sure to let someone else tank it once you have reached 32 HP/s as going any higher than that will further deteriorate your health quicker, making you unable to tank again if HP is low.

Get a few survivors to take care of the paranoid survivors when they spawn. The easiest way to do it is by being within them and then you can easily melee them to death without taking damage.

Make sure to quickly bring down the tank to desperation, the more time you take to do this, the more higher its contamination damage will be at desperation for all survivors.

Try not to be within punching range of the tank when you know it hasn't recently used it's Toxic Cloud ability yet as getting exposed to it will soon inflict you with the Lethal Disease Bad Status Effect

Feel free to add it to the wiki whenever you want mute and change some stuff up if needed.